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Summoned to their record company offices for a day of promotion, it’s only new girl Amelle Berrabah who is there for the first interview.

Keisha Buchanan, 22 and sporting the biggest hair this side of Dynasty, strolls in a few minutes later. Tardiness aside, the girls are glamour personified (though perhaps the two things are related).

Where Keisha is all hair, Amelle, 21, is all eyeliner and mascara, and Heidi, 23, when she joins us later, is all foundation, her skin looking perfect.

They look every inch the most successful female act of the 21st century, as they were proclaimed recently by researchers from the British Hit Singles & Albums book.

They won the title, over the likes of Madonna, Kylie and Britney Spears, for their numerous achievements since they released their first single Overload back in 2000 – the four No 1s, the three Top 5 albums, the eight million album sales worldwide, to name just a few.

What makes their success even more remarkable is that the band’s line-up has lost two members over the years.

“It’s one of those ones where it doesn’t make sense until you look back on all the work you’ve done,” says Keisha. “Even since Amelle’s joined the group [earlier this year] we’ve done so much stuff. If we looked back at all the stuff we’ve done since we began, we’d be in so much shock.”

About time, then, that the girls put out that inevitable greatest hits album. Or is it? Some might say that the forthcoming Overloaded: The Singles Collection, out November 13, is a little premature given that Amelle only replaced the departing Mutya Buena earlier this year. Surely it would have been better to do an album with her first?

“We’d already started planning the Greatest Hits anyway,” explains Keisha. “And when Mutya left we decided it was even more important, that we should do this as closure so we don’t have to relive history all the time.”

“And I do feel really settled already,” adds Amelle. “I know what I’m doing now, and I’m just looking forward to the future really. I can’t wait to get writing and recording the next album.”

The Sugababes in 2006 look very different to the original band, which sprang from Keisha and Mutya’s childhood friendship. London-born Keisha first spotted Mutya singing on a Michael Barrymore talent show when she was just six.

The duo later became friends and begun working with another girl, Siobhan Donaghy in the studio. Before they knew it they had formed a band.

The girls’ obvious commitment to the band and determination to keep it moving on from the past shows them in their most united front yet.

“Most of the stories about us fighting haven’t been true,” Heidi adds.

“To be honest with you, the proof is in the pudding,” says Keisha. “We’re still here.”

“But nothing has really gone on,” says Heidi.

“I’ve never seen anything,” adds Amelle. “I was expecting Keisha and Heidi to be bitches,” she jokes. “But there’s been no fights, no nothing. I swear to God if it gets too friendly I might have to leave.”